Plot:
This book is a guide for teenagers, with a lot of short stories about HIV-infected persons, their history of becoming infected and their way to handle with this serious disease.
These many stories are mostly very tragic: a woman who never had any relations with drug-addicted persons or homosexual men fell in love with a cute man, who seems to be as healthy as everyone. Years after this relation, the woman already had success in her job and a loving family, she found out that she is infected with HIV, and that her children are infected too.
A successful artist, who is homosexual but has always used a condom for sexual intercourse, gets infected just because a condom tore.
A nurse, who always made the greatest efforts in her job, because her main goal was to help as many people as possible, got infected when she tried to treat a drug-addicted person.
A teenager, who had the usual problems in his youth, but also couldn't resist the temptation of drugs, got addicted to cocaine first, and to heroin afterwards. He didn't think that the consequence of sharing a needle with other persons could be so terrible. He got infected at 19 years, two years later he was already dead.
All these stories are very tragic, and they seem very unfair. But is it more fair, when a homeless drug-addict gets infected, who doesn't have a family or a home, but is judged to die? It doesn't matter if you are
The book shows, that every one of us is very endangered to become HIV infected, and its main topic is how to prevent getting Aids. The best way of prevention is still using condoms, but not even this is absolutely safe, as the story of the homosexual artist shows. It is very important, that every human being is familiar with this disease in its entire details, so people might think twice before they have sex with another man or another woman, they might be more careful and will have more respect to infected persons.
Jeanne Blake's wants every juvenile and every adult, who doesn't know everything about Aids, to read her book. Prevention, as best as it could be, can only be reached through information, safer sex and understanding.
The book contains every single detail about Aids, the risks of getting infected, drugs and their relation with Aids, stories about infected persons and it answers a lot of questions.
Interpretation:
The author's goal was to create an alternative kind of protection, which is to clear up at best everyone. With tragic stories and useful tips, but also explanation of everything which is important to know, I think she reached her goal.
Personal Comment:
I can only recommend this book to everyone, because the author did her job very well, and managed to write a high-quality Aids-guide. It shows the deep frustration of infected persons, and also how easy it is to become infected. The short stories are very tragic and make the reader very concerned about this topic.
Kids, who are not familiar with the great risk of getting Aids, will understand the whole topic after reading this book.
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